Sony, Microsoft start E3 2012 party early with keynote times

Are you starting to get excited about E3 2012 yet? If not, you should be as Sony and Microsoft have just announced important dates and start times for their respective keynote conferences.

Just like E3 2011, it seems like Microsoft are starting to follow a certain pattern. Last year the company were first to announce the latest and greatest involving the Xbox 360 and this year, history will repeat itself.

Microsoft has confirmed that their keynote will start on Monday June 4 at 10am Pacific Time. For those of you in the UK that relates to 6pm UK time so an ideal slot for most of you. However, those watching in Asia will have to stay up quite late as the event won’t start until 1am Hong Kong time or 2am in Japan.

Sony on the other hand will be much more accomodating for their Asia viewers. Their keynote will start on June 4th also, but will take place much later at 6pm Pacific Time or 9pm Eastern Time. That means that UK fans will have to stay until late for a 2am start, but those watching in Asia can enjoy a 9am (HKT) or 10am (JP) start the following morning (Tuesday).

While Sony and Microsoft have now both finalized their E3 conferences, we’re yet to hear from Nintendo as they look to have another crack at showing off the Wii U to the world. We’re guessing that their keynote will take place on Tuesday June 5th, but we’ll update this as soon as they have given the details officially.

What can we expect to see from Sony and Microsoft though at E3? They have both said that they are not going to show any new hardware, but do you think it is a sly move to divert attention away? Both the PS4 and the Xbox ‘720’ have been rumored to death, so perhaps both companies want their eventual reveals to be a complete surprise since in previous E3 tradition, the major reveals are often leaked prior to the event.

How many of you are actually going to try and get tickets? Microsoft’s event is probably the one you want to attend, since the company has become notorious for handing out free goodies such as Xbox 360 consoles. We’re expecting to see a full reveal on Black Ops 2, while some gameplay for GTA V and The Last of Us would go down a treat as well.

Let us know how the timing of both events affects you. Will you be tuning in to both conferences, or is it too early or late for you?